I fished most days this past week and took a few days off for family stuff. Overall, the results were good for the conditions we faced on some days. The redfish have been a big help when the trout aren't cooperating. We're still on the same trout pattern which is mainly drifting over shell and mud in 6 to 10 feet of water while casting to slicks. The redfish we're catching are in anywhere from 2 feet of water to 12 feet in their normal summertime haunts.

June 12th - Kirt, Jeff and Bradley managed to trick 19 trout to 22 inches and one redfish in winds gusting to 25 knots. Most of the other boats pulled the plug at 9 O'clock. One of the guys actually got sea sick because it was so rough. I won’t say which one of them it was because he may not fish with me again if I do. All of our fish came on Limetreuse Assassins.

June 13th - We got our one light wind day for the week and Haley and Scott took full advantage of it. The tides were almost non-existent, but they were still able to hit 20 trout to 24.5 inches on the head. Various colored Salt Water Assassins and Rattle Traps did the trick.

June 14th - The wind started cranking once again, but Frank, Adam and John made the best of it. We gave up on trout early with only a few in the box and went red fishing. They kept their limits of reds up to 7.5 pounds and let go of a couple of others that were pushing 8 lbs. Red Shad Sea Shad Assassins worked the best.

June 16th - After missing the weigh-in in the first Galveston Redfish Series with a good sack of fish I was more than ready to redeem myself. Jake couldn't fish this one with me so my good customer Adam Hawn did. I had a ton of confidence going into it because I've had 3 or 4 schools I've been visiting on and off for the past 3 or 4 weeks. There is one school that I've kept an eye on leading up to the tourney, but didn't fish for fear of someone seeing me. It was by far the one with the fattest redfish. I've only hit it a few times with customers and never stayed too long. I didn't want to risk not having them for tournament day. Well, guess what? Adam and I pulled up to the area the morning of the tourney and there were two boats on the school. Shortly after that another boat pulled in. One of the boats was in the tournament and they were maybe 15 yards from the other boats. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The one tournament boat ended up finishing near the top in the tournament. I could've gotten in there with them, but that's not how I fish. Adam and I resorted to one of my back-up schools and caught a dozen reds up to almost 8 pounds. The problem was that we didn't have another big one to put with it....only 4.5 to 5 pounders. The storms and high winds prevented us from doing much running around. We weighed in 13.03 pounds and finished somewhere in the top 20 out of 80 teams. 17.12 lbs. won first place. Congrats to Ryan Sweezy and Ray Malone for their strong finish.

I'm giving these redfish tournaments a break for a while. After having two other tournament boats get within 20 yards of us in the first tourney and witnessing the Rambo style fishing in this one, my nerves can’t handle another one. The look-for-boats style of fishing has taken over and it's just not for me. The relaxed rules haven't helped the situation either. A tournament boat must stay at least 30 yards away from another tournament boat in this particular tourney. 30 YARDS! My little 10 year old daughter can cast further than that. Things have changed, but I haven’t. I guess we could just drop the boat in the water on tournament day and ride around until we see other boats on fish. The competition aspect is a thing of the past and there is apparently no shame or pride involved. I’m not saying all of these tournament guys do it, but you’d be surprised how many fish this way. Some of them have gained a reputation for their “aggressive” fishing style. Others are well on their way. This time I'm not apologizing for the rant because something needs to change. For what it's worth, our reds were caught on Marsh Works swim baits and Sea Shad Assassins while casting to slicks and mud boils.

June 17th - I took my dad and brothers fishing for Father's Day and had an absolute blast. It was the first time in at least 4 years that dad and I have fished together and the first time ever that dad, Jason, Chris and I have been on the same boat together. It was a little breezy, but we still caught a dozen nice trout along with some sand trout and a red. We did a lot of running around looking at different areas. This day was more about spending time together than anything else. It was definitely the highlight of my year! Limetreuse and Red Shad Assassins worked well.

June 18th - Jenny, Ashley and Tara got on a few good trout before the storms forced a move around 10 AM. We then went over to the school of redfish that I couldn't fish in Saturday's tournament. It was extremely windy by then, but they caught all the reds they could handle. Most were just slightly oversized, but 3 were in the slot and very thick. Jenny had one that weighed 9.25 pounds and was only 27.25 inches. Ashley caught one that was 26 inches and weighed 7.5 pounds. They kept 3 over 28 inches and released the rest. All of our fish were caught on Limetreuse Sea Shad Assassins. We had a blast even in the rough conditions.